January 2020 transfer window

[Deano]

There is a drop off between the starting 2 and Saiss but I'd have no worries if Saiss had to play he's been superb this season in midfield and defence.

 

[sycophantia]

I don't really care what other clubs have done, this is our third successive poor window. Yeah we may well get away with it, but we're asking Raul, Neves, Moutinho and Neves to play another 25 games in great form and not get injured. What's underneath them isn't good enough for the top six unless we change our system. That's a failing of Jeff, Kev, and probably a bit of Jorge too.

Sorry, you're entitled to your opinion but I think your wrong in every aspect, don't think it was a poor window, quite the opposite, imo it was a good window, a striker would have been the icing on the cake but as other posts have said its virtually impossible atm. We'll see where we end up in May. Having said all that it depends what your ambitions are for this season, I'm not hung up on getting top 4 but top 6 is a real possibility with this squad

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

They have Son and Giroud tbf, we have Campana!

I was reading red cafe last night and somebody said, literally, that Ighalo was the only player IN THE WORLD that would be a; happy to be a rotation option for Rashford and b: be better up top than their current options. What bollocks. It's bollocks for them and it's bollocks for us.

Are we saying that there's nobody that's not as good as Raul but better than nothing? Similar for doc, Neves and Moutinho? There's a massive drop off between Joao and Saiss, but we couldn't bring in a player for the in between space? With the amount of games we play we could easily offer somebody 20 starts and 20 sub apps a season to save some key players from getting burnt out, with having such a massive drop in quality

We could easily do it (but couldn't be arsed), but established Champions League teams can't do it.

Ok then.

 

[Del Woppio]

If we couldn't do it, then somebody has failed. We probably spend the best part of a million pounds a year on Thelwell, the recruitment team and the associated expenses, who have only bought one player that's first team ready in three windows. Three!

Nuno said on numerous occasions that he wanted different solutions and more players, and he's been let down

 

[darlowolf64]

You got a link to that video, Jinky - all I can find is stills. But yes, they have Matheson listed under 'first team news.' The lad's to-do list must be interesting. Psychology homework. Revise for test. Replace Matt Doherty...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeLhk9gUn6Y

 

[Law's Bus]

If we couldn't do it, then somebody has failed. We probably spend the best part of a million pounds a year on Thelwell, the recruitment team and the associated expenses, who have only bought one player that's first team ready in three windows. Three!

Let's see - who have we bought (as in actually spent more than £1m in a permanent transfer on) in the last three windows, eh?

* Jonny
* Dendonker
* Jimenez
* Neto
* Jordao
* Podence
* Cutrone

Of that lot, Jordao has made a decent impression in his few games for the first team and U23s, but has both been injured and not surprisingly isn't as good as Neves and Moutinho at this stage. Cutrone was homesick and we've been over all that.

So which one of those is the only one that is first team ready?

 

[Tony Towner]

Jonny, Donck and Raul can be used to fit whichever arguement you like. Personally I wouldn't class any of them as being from the last 3 windows although I appreciate that's when all the deals were finalised.

 

[Del Woppio]

Get to fuck, you're not counting lads that were already here ffs. You sound like moxey

 

[pavlosmacwolf]

Who and from where? The question is simple, where is there a decent striker, who would be happy to sit on the bench behind Raul, but has a good goal scoring record and wouldn't,t cost 40 mill + and want his wages delivered in a wheelbarrow every week.
I still think Campania will surprise quite a few, Nuno is no dummy when choosing players, and a kin genius when it comes to improving them.
We now have Docherty,s replacement in the bag, and with Neto, Jota and Podence (not to mention Adama) we have an Olympic sprint forward line.
I was personally looking for Moutinho 2, but we may already have him.
So I bow to those who tell you what Spurs, Man U, and other (big) clubs managed to get in and say frankly, we bought for the future, which may be in a month or two's time and didn,'t splash mega bucks on prima donnas.
Good window, if not great!

 

[Law's Bus]

Get to fuck, you're not counting lads that were already here ffs. You sound like moxey

Top quality personal insult there.

Note for future: when getting pulled up on an inaccurate drama llama whine, then reach straight for the personal insults rather than arguing your case or admitting that you're wrong.



You said "bought". That's when players were bought, like it or not.

 

[YoungWolf]

That's not my job. I'm not in football recruitment and have a Nashlike knowledge of football beyond England so much as I get your point it's not really relevant.

The way I see it we needed a sticking plaster solution until someone from the U23s is ready to take that role themselves. Ennis and BAS are on loan to League 1 and I doubt either will ever get to that level, Campana isn't suggested to be ready for that yet so probably an older guy for 6-18 months to do the kind of job Bennett has signed up for at Leicester. Nobody who is going to make the pulse race, but someone who can do a budget version of what Raul does without having to change the formation

On the sticking plaster thing... let’s say we sign Oliveira and Raul did get injured like everyone keeps suggesting - who would you rather up top in our system, him or Jota? It’s Diogo for me.

Leicester signed Bennett so they could loan out Benkovic right? I don’t think it was the same situation

 

[Del Woppio]

Top quality personal insult there.

Note for future: when getting pulled up on an inaccurate drama llama whine, then reach straight for the personal insults rather than arguing your case or admitting that you're wrong.



You said "bought". That's when players were bought, like it or not.

:icon_lol: personal insult?!

OK if not moxey, we'll say bojo. It's exactly the same nonsense logic of his 50,000 more nurses including 19,000 that are already here.

If I word it "in three windows we have only brought in one 'first team ready' senior player that wasn't here in 18/19", is that better for you?

 

[Dire Wolf]

It wasn't a spectacular window, for sure, but it certainly gives the impression to me of a team that is building solidly. Which IIRC is exactly how they said they were going to approach competing in the PL? Sure, we all want the shiny, flashy new toys that we see advertised on the TV, what we got instead were a few boxes of Lego that are gonna last fucking ages.

 

[Deleted Cyber]

The objective was to improve the quality that was already here. We did do that with Podence v Cutrone? Jury may be out but I am happy to cencede that as an upgrade. Campania isn't getting my excitement levels racing yet. In time maybe.

Do we still have the least depth in the top half?
Probably now Sheff united have gone money loopy.
Do we have adequate Raul cover? No we don't. I can't remember Jota coming on for Raul as a like for like sub. Maybe its happened? I don't see Jota as a Raul back up they are different players with different strengths.
Those touting BAS as a back up have been quite rightly shown that he isn't ready.

Nobody said its easy, it isn't. But I look at our squad and it is not screaming top 4.

 

[Norman Deeley]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeLhk9gUn6Y

Thanks for that, Darlo. I actually thought the part with Thelwell was quite good. Thought KT was effectively saying, "This is your position. Go out there and make it your own." And you could see Luke take it in, understanding immediately what his role would be.

 

[Kenny]

Those touting BAS as a back up have been quite rightly shown that he isn't ready.

.

Has anyone done that?

From the loan movements yesterday, all we can take from it is Nuno thinks Campana is ready to step up to the bench. We will actually see if he thinks that over the next 2 or 3 games

 

[Boozad]

Why do we have to play the same way if Raul goes off, is tactical tweaking not a thing any more? Why do we have to have a ‘direct like for like’ replacement? For two and a half seasons now Nuno and his team have done us more than proud but because we haven’t bought a bench warmer who’d only play a few minutes here or there we’re useless?

So last window we bought Neto (first team player since August), Cutrone (obviously had plans for him but we can’t control his head) and Podence. Nearly £50m there on three players who were clearly intended to be part of the first team. How the fuck does that equate to one first team player brought in in the last three windows?

 

[AndyWolves]

I'm getting so bored of the constant 'sky is falling' about our squad

This is our strategy, we WILL have a small squad and we WILL have players who cover multiple positions. We will have a squad of first teamers supplemented by u23s

We'll do the same in the summer, we'll let players go and we'll get some in and folk will still be banging the drum about a small squad.

Just accept that this is how things will be and it's beyond our control to do anything about it

 

[Carrotdude]

It’s not just a back up for Raul though, Nuno literally never takes him off let alone rests him from the start. Cutrone was a perfectly adequate player to come on in games or start the odd one and he didn’t get a look in. So you’re literally trying to sign a player who is a) good and b) never going to get on the pitch unless Raul gets injured.

 

[Rui_CostCo]

If we were genuinely serious about challenging for a champions league posn then it was a bad window. As we weren’t and we focused on investment for the future it was pretty good.
The twitter massive are still of the opinion we can outspend everyone as in the champ.

From a lot of what's being said, and what's being expected , I can only assume that a lot of people were asleep when Fosun took over and have never listened to a word Jeff Shi has said.

We are not now, and probably not ever going to be a world record transfer fee breaking club, because we do not believe that is the way to financial success. We are not going to buy Gareth Bale to try and get in the Champions League, we are not going to buy 90 million pound ready made, 25 caps at International level strikers to replace Raul in winter transfer windows. You do not buy financial success buying success on the pitch.

But whilst we may not signing many Zlatan's, we may be mining diamonds, like Luke Matheson who is not your average 17 year old kid and could well turn out to be one of the best signings of this window.

The number of people who have lost patience with Fosun, because that is what I am reading, after already, ahead of schedule turning us into a top 6 side, getting us into a European KO stage competition and creating a side littered with the kind of players we could once only dream of turning out in Old Gold is astonishing.

I think I put my new years wish down as hoping Nuno , the players and the board would continue to get full support from everyone. 1st of Feb and that's clearly out the window.